Surrogates land the candidates' low blows

Thursday 2 November 2000 22.52 EST
First published on Thursday 2 November 2000 22.52 EST

Voters in America's battleground states cannot turn on their television this week without exposing themselves to a bombardment of increasingly aggressive election adverts as election day nears.

The George W Bush campaign may be all sweetness and light on the surface, but its latest ad accuses Al Gore of "bending the truth". The Gore campaign, meanwhile, has just launched a new ad which attacks Mr Bush's record in his home state, Texas, and warns that his tax cuts "hurt the many".

But that is just the start. The real nastiness in the battle of the airwaves is waged not by the campaigns themselves, but by their surrogates; the organisations and special interest groups which say the things that the candidates desperately want said - provided it's by someone else.

Yesterday, a Texas-based group called Aretino Industries began airing an ad targeting Mr Gore as weak on defence and a puppet in the hands of communist China. The commercial, which deliberately echoes a famous anti-Barry Goldwater ad from the 1964 election, shows a girl pulling the petals off a daisy as a nuclear explosion begins.

"China has the ability to threaten our homes with long range nuclear warheads," the commentary says, as the words "Vote Republican" appear on the screen.

From the other side, two ads by the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People urge black American voters to support the Democrats by invoking the racial murder of James Byrd, who was dragged to his death behind a truck in Mr Bush's state two years ago.

One of the ads features a pick-up truck pulling a heavy chain like the one to which Byrd was tied, with a commentary by Byrd's daughter Renee Mullins. The other, also featuring Ms Mullins but without the picture of the truck and chain, says: "We will not be dragged away from our future. Vote on November 7. Please."

An ad from the Reform party's presidential candidate, Pat Buchanan, is not for the faint-hearted, either. It features a mock auction in which the two main candidates are for sale. Mr Gore is bought by "Red China" while Mr Bush is purchased by "the drug lobby".

At local level, the ad war has been just as fast and furious.

Early research suggests that the Democrats, who have officially pledged to ban the "soft money" that supports the ads by independent groups, are making much greater use of the system than their Republican rivals.

A New York University report this week said that pro-Democratic groups' spending on television advertising totalled more than $9m (£6.2m), compared with less than $500,000 spent by pro-Republican groups.

Negative campaigning of this kind is universally condemned by politicians and the public. But as long as it works - and it seems to - neither party is prepared to disarm itself of such an effective weapon.